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Google Sheets can be used for a lot more than just storing and organizing your data. With the right add-ons, you can streamline your reporting process, collect big-picture data predictions and analysis, and even send emails — all from your spreadsheets.

Before we dive into the 12 Google Sheet add-ons, here’s a brief overview on how to download a Google Sheets add-on:

1. Open new or existing google spreadsheet

2. Click add ons in navigation bar → “get add ons”

3. Hover over an add-on and click “free” button

4. In the pop-up window, sign into your google account and click “allow”

4. The add-on is automatically installed

5. To manage or remove add-ons, click “manage add-ons”

6. If you want to remove the add-on, click the green “manage” button, and then “remove” 

Important note: You’ll only see these add-ons on a desktop, they don’t work on mobile. Also, most add-ons work for both Chrome and Safari, but some are only designed for Chrome.

Now that we’ve got that covered, here are 12 Google Sheet add-ons that can streamline your entire reporting process.

Email

1.autoCrat: When you’ve finalized a spreadsheet and want to send it to someone else, this add-on enables you to merge your spreadsheet data into a document and email your data as either an attachment. Autocrat can also mass-generate personalized documents.

Image credit to autoCrat add-on.

2.Yet Another Mail Merge: This tool automates email campaigns, tracks emails, and lets you personalize emails for specific contact groups. To do this, you simply import your contacts into a spreadsheet, and choose a Google email template. You can send one generic email to all your contacts, or customize emails for different contact segments.

Image credit to Yet Another Mail Merge add-on.

3.Gmail Scheduler: Gmail Scheduler allows you to schedule emails for later. After writing your email in Gmail and saving it as a draft, your spreadsheet will automatically send the email at the appropriately allotted time.

Image credit to Gmail Scheduler add-on.

Organization:

4. Document Studio: If your data is spread out across spreadsheets, Excel sheets, Google Form Responses, and CSV files, this add-on makes it possible to combine all your miscellaneous information into one clean document. Among other things, Document Studio assists you in creating highly sophisticated marketing pitches or business letters. It’s your choice whether you want your final document in PDF format, Google Sheets, Docs, or Slides, Microsoft Powerpoint, Word, or Excel, HTML or Plain text, or an ePub eBook.

Image credit to Document Studio add-on.

5. Power Tools: Power Tools is a useful all-in-one service to cleanup data, reformat it, combine sheets, split columns, customize formulas, and more. If there’s one service in Power Tools you use a lot, you can even save it as a favorite. The add-on also automates mundane tasks, like adding or removing text by position.

Image credit to Power Tools add-on.

Visuals:

6. Table Styles: If you want to use your spreadsheets for presentation purposes, Table Styles helps you achieve a sleek style. With Table Styles, you’re able to add custom or predefined styles, fonts, borders, and colors to your sheet. If you were presenting a spreadsheet at a marketing conference with company data, for example, you could use your company colors for a professional look.

Image credit to Table Styles add-on.

7. Awesome Table: This add-on gives you the option of viewing or analyzing data in other visual forms. Awesome Table transforms your data into charts, maps, cards, visual tables, or other custom interfaces.

Image credit to Awesome Table add-on.

Data Analysis, Calculations, Predictions:

8. Solver: Solver helps you maximize profits, minimize costs, and deal with budget allocation, which is particularly useful if you’re in charge of budgeting multiple marketing campaigns at once. Solver can calculate and model your data, and provide solution optimization, as well.

Image credit to Solver add-on.

9. BigML: Conceiving predictions with your data is often tricky, time-consuming, and inefficient. This add-on solves that problem by extracting value from your known data and filling the blank cells in each data row with predictions. It also assigns confidence levels to predictions, and populates lead score values.

Image credit to BigML.com.

10. AdStage: If you’re employing paid marketing strategies, this tool incorporates your paid marketing performance data directly into your spreadsheet. It provides tools for A/B testing, so you can determine your top-performing campaigns or ads. It also enables you to gather cross-network SEM data in one table, and more.

Image credit to AdStage add-on.

Publishing and Sharing:

11. AppSheet: Building a new mobile app has never been easier — this add-on allows you to fill your spreadsheet with data including contacts, products, inventory, property, and anything else you want tracked, and then automatically converts that data into your new mobile app. If you’re interested in creating a custom app to distribute to employees or customers, AppSheet works effectively within minutes.

Image credit to AppSheet.com.

12. MarkdownTableMaker: If you’d prefer seeing your data in a Markdown table, this add-on converts your spreadsheet (or individual columns) into Markdown. You’re also able to save the Markdown conversion to Google Drive, or copy and paste it anywhere else you want.

Image credit to MarkdownTableMaker add-on.

By now, it’s clear that creating great visual content is critical for marketers — and that’s especially true on social media.

As of 2017, Instagram has doubled its monthly active user base in the last two years, which means a lot more people are viewing and sharing photos in 2018. Plus, visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types.

In other words, people like to be shown, not told — and in turn, they share.

For that reason, it’s important for marketers to know how to create compelling photos for their business’ social networks and blogs. And while it can be worth putting the investment of time and money into photo editing software on your computer, many of us are exclusively using our phones to take pictures and could stand to edit them without uploading them to a desktop. That’s especially true when you’re posting in real time, like at an event. Luckily, there are numerous great inexpensive and free photo editing apps out there for mobile devices — some of them even cost just a few bucks. But which apps are the best?

Check out our short list of 12 apps below — organized by apps that are compatible with both iOS and Android, apps offered just for the iPhone, and apps designed to edit face-focused photos.

Inexpensive and Free Photo Editing Apps for iOS and Android

1. Afterlight

$0.99 | iOS | Android | Windows

There was a time when I was a bit more old-school in my photo editing. I counted on Instagram tools alone, sometimes combining them with the “enhance” feature on my phone’s Photos app. Then, I learned about Afterlight — a somewhat rudimentary tool, but one that has all the features you need to do a basic photo edit.

From controlling the color tones, to adjusting exposure and brightness, to rotating and straightening a photo, it has everything you need for lighting or color fixes. It also contains 74 filters, including a Fusion feature that lets you mix tools, filters, and textures to create your own personal look. Into frames? Afterlight has a whopping 128 to choose from, boasting a perfect pairing with Instagram.

My favorite tools, though, have to be the ones for Brightness and Shadows. Some pictures do well with a decrease in shadows and increase in brightness for cleaner, fresher look. But flipping those around can also create a more mysterious, nighttime feel — That’s what I did with this photo of tree ornaments.

2. VSCO Cam

Free | iOS | Android

Over the past few years, VSCO Cam has become a highly popular photo editing app for mobile. While it does boast a wider set of editing tools than most other editing apps, its main claim to fame is its filters.

These filters have a softer, more authentic look that resembles real film, compared to the over-saturated looks of many Instagram filters. Plus, it’s great for when you need to edit a photo on the fly. Simply upload the photo to VSCO Cam, slap on one of the great filters — I used C1 below — and call it a day. (There are more filters available for purchase, too.)

3. Photoshop Express

Free | iOS | Android

Believe it or not, Adobe Photoshop isn’t just for your computer. Adobe Photoshop Express puts most of what people love about Adobe’s popular photo editing program in their pockets — lighting, color, and sharpness options included.

Photoshop Express is especially useful for making photo collages — something the app’s developers likely highlighted for mobile users who want to share many photos at once on Facebook or Instagram. The app’s “Decorate” setting even allows you to annotate your photo with digital stickers before saving and posting directly on social media.

Although this photo editor makes Photoshop’s best features easily accessible, keep in mind it does carry the natural limitations of a mobile app. Specifically, you can only upload JPG files smaller than 16 megapixels (MP).

Nonetheless, what it does on a smaller platform is still super impressive. You should also try similar Adobe photo editing apps such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Capture.

Here’s how Photoshop Express helps you choose different collage orientations for multiple photos:

4. Snapseed

Free | iOS | Android

Snapseed is another app that’s great for basic image enhancements. It’s got all the classic adjustment tools, such as tuning, cropping, and straightening. Plus, its sharpening tool is one of the best we’ve seen — it really does enhance a photo’s detail, without making it look grainy, like many other photo sharpening adjusters out there.

But what makes this tool particularly unique is its “Selective Adjust” tool. It allows you to pinpoint an area in a photo and adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation of that single point. So if you want viewers to focus on a certain part of your photo — say, the buds in the center of a plant — then you can make the buds more vivid.

Want more help with Snapseed? Google, the maker of the app, created a dedicated support page with tips and instructions.

5. SKRWT

$0.99 | iOS | Android

Ever taken a picture of something straight-on — a doorway, a building, your food — and found the perspective was just a little bit askew or tilted? The SKRWT app lets you adjust the perspective of your photos to make the lines look clean and square.

Have a look at what I was able to do with a simple window shot.

Before:

After:

At first, the “before” image doesn’t look that skewed, but seeing the “after” version really shows what a difference symmetry can make. If it bugs you to see a photo that’s slightly at an angle, then this app is well worth the dollar.

6. Live Collage

Free | iOS | Android

Collages made on Photoshop Express can be great, whether it’s to show a comparison (like a before-and-after series), or to highlight multiple photos from the same event or theme. But our favorite photo collage app is Live Collage, mostly because of its wide variety of layouts. It contains several options for photo organization, both classic and fun, with interesting and colorful backgrounds. Plus, you can add customized text in different fonts, colors, and sizes.

If you’re strapped for time, there are basic photo editing options within the app, too, making it a handy one-stop shop.

7. Foodie

Free | iOS | Android

If you’re anything like I am, your personal social media feeds are loaded with images of food. It’s no wonder that food-specific apps are coming out of the woodwork to make photos look even more delectable.

Called out by Bustle for taking “food pictures to some next level gorgeous,” Foodie uses more than 30 filters and other editing features to turn what might otherwise be a humdrum snack into a visual feast.

When I applied the CR2 filter to a photo of chocolate candy, this was the result:

Best Photo Editing Apps for iPhone

8. Camera+

$2.99 | iOS only

With the highest price tag on the list, you have to wonder what makes Camera+ so special. When it was first released, Lifehacker called it “The Best Camera App for iPhone,” with TIME writing, “If the iPhone’s standard camera is like a digital point-and-shoot, the Camera+ app is like a high-quality SLR lens.”

While the app has many of the classic photo editing tools like color tints, retro effects, and crops, there are a few gems that make it unique. First is its image stabilizer, which helps you capture the sharpest photos possible before you even take a picture. It also lets you zoom in up to 6X, which can really up the quality of your shot if you’re trying to hone in on something far away.

Finally, its Clarity filter is what The Wall Street Journal‘s Kevin Sintumuang calls its “secret sauce — it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot.” I’d have to agree — just check out how it enhanced this photo of my dog.

9. Mextures

$0.99 | iOS only

Mextures is one of the more advanced apps on this list — and its crown jewel is layer-based editing. That allows users to stack different adjustment layers on top of each other, moving and editing them individually, allowing for nearly limitless creativity. You can also apply multiple filters, textures, and blending models to the same photo to create a really unique look. If you find an editing formula you really like, you can save it to apply to other photos later, or even share it with your friends.

Here’s what happened when I took a simple photo of candlesticks on a white background only and applied three enhancements — Waterfront overlay, Bokeh Baby Overlay, and the Color Dodge blending mode.

10. Enlight

$3.99 | iOS only

I’ll just say how I feel: This app is incredible.

Winner of the Apple Design Award in 2017, Enlight will change the way you see even the most ordinary picture the next time you open your iPhone camera. Among its 10 different photo editing features, the app’s Photo Mixer allows you to blend multiple photos together — or combine a photo with text — for a super artistic result.

According to Les Shu of Digital Trends, Enlight is “a powerful Photoshop-like app, minus the steep learning curve.”

Check out a stunning example of what the app’s Photo Mixer can do below.

Best Face Editing Apps

11. Facetune

$3.99 on iOS | $5.99 on Android

Never take a selfie you don’t like again. Facetune is considered the top photo app in more than 120 countries, allowing you to make up for unflattering mobile photos with professional-level corrections to numerous facial features.

The app offers eight different types of corrections and enhancements to a person’s face in a given photo — including to the hair, eyes, skin, and smile. Taking a new professional headshot? I highly recommend you touch it up in the Facetune app before adding the photo to your LinkedIn profile (not that I don’t think you’re beautiful already).

Here’s just one example of a skin tone correction done with Facetune, making all the difference:

12. Visage Makeup Editor

Free | iOS | Android

Disclaimer: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with under-eye circles. We all have them, and we sometimes wear them like medals. (We do, however, take issue with and don’t recommend a lack of sleep.)

That said, when it comes to sharing photos of ourselves on social media, vanity sometimes enters the picture. Sound familiar? There’s an app for that.

We like the Visage makeup editor, which instantly retouches photos and lets you add some special effects, like a “Pop Art Style” filter that can make your selfie look slightly Warhol-esque. The app comes equipped with some interesting backgrounds, as well as lighting and color features, with more available for purchase.

The only drawback? The free version is a bit ad-heavy, and unless you upgrade to pro, your finished product will be stuck with a branded hashtag at the bottom.

Now Comes the Fun Part

See how easy it is to create and share visual content? Of course, mastering these apps will require a bit of practice, but if you’re unsure where to start, just look around you — that’s what we did when we tried each of them.

Think about your marketing goals for this year. Then, ask yourself what kind of photos will help you accomplish them. From there, you can pick and choose the best apps from this list.

So start getting visual. We can’t wait to see what you create.